DCRSD SC Mtg October 27 2021

001The meeting of the Dudley-Charlton Regional School Committee is now in session. It is Wednesday, October 27. It is 7 p.m. We're at the Charlton Middle School, and we will all stand for the Pledge to the Flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And now we will have a moment of silence to meditate. Approval of the minutes. I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes of our regular meeting of Wednesday, September 22nd. So moved. Second. Discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Motion carries, it's unanimous. I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the executive session of Wednesday, September 22nd. Do I have a motion? Second. Discussion? Should we hold this

002for executive session? I just wanted this error in the minutes. Okay. Do you want to hold it for later? Yeah, we'll hold it for later. Okay. okay so we can discuss that in the executive session and approve it at the yeah yeah thank you okay i'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes of our regular meeting of wednesday october 13th second discussion seeing none all in favor motion carries it's unanimous approval of the warrant this evening we do have a warrant and it's making its way around the table citizens forum everyone this evening can take a packet of our policy for citizens forum and this evening our citizens forum will be a half hour and as the policy says it is three minutes for each speaker and i Who wants to be the first one

003to come up? You know what we'd like? When you're speaking to us, we'd like you to face us, okay? Okay, yeah, I'm talking to you and the people at home. Okay. Timothy Paquette, Dudley, Southbridge Road. For the record, school started 56 days ago, and so did the forced masking of our kids again. On May 6, 2020, Governor Charlie Baker issued an executive order that required anyone over the age of two to wear a mask indoors. That was 539 days ago. The Massachusetts state of emergency due to COVID-19 ended June 15, 2021. That was 124 days ago. Yesterday, Jeff Riley extended the mask mandate for all school children again until at least January 15th, 2022. This week, my daughter started playing basketball again. Watching them grow and get better over time is priceless. Seeing the smile

004on their face every time they make a great play is one of my favorite things in this whole world. But unfortunately this year, we were informed mask will be required to be worn while in the gym at our schools. I think we can all agree activities like running up and down a basketball court with a mask on defies logic by making it more difficult to breathe. Last Monday, I saw an announcement posted to Facebook for a Dudley Town meeting that was held on October 25th, so two days ago. The post clearly stated that unvaccinated attendees are encouraged to wear a mask, even though it was being held at the auditorium at Shepherd Hill. This meeting was televised live, which to my surprise, showed our superintendent not wearing a mask while physically being in the Shepherd

005Hill High School auditorium. At the beginning of the September 8th school committee meeting, right before the gavel fell, a member of this body went out of their way to come over to where I was sitting and demanded I put a mask on. When I said no thank you, they motioned for the police officer to come over and enforce the new mask rule. Tonight, we are all sitting here wearing masks because if we don't, we'll be asked to leave. Parents have repeatedly asked for a change of venue due to medical issues or because they are hard of hearing and need to read lips, etc. All known requests that I'm aware of have been turned down. Why aren't parents being allowed the same forum during school committee meetings as the town of Dudley? Maybe we should just

006call this a special town meeting instead of a school committee meeting. That way more parents can attend. The double standard here is pretty amazing and in my opinion proves these masks are all for a greater agenda. Here are two questions that I have. What guidance or policy is this school committee using to require and under what authority? enforcing taxpayers to wear a mask in order to attend a municipal function that is open to the public. My second question, does the Dudley Charlton Regional School District have a policy or is there a rule that states that the Blue Devils basketball teams must wear a mask while playing basketball in the school gyms in this district? Sadly, inch by inch by inch, we are losing our freedoms. Eventually, a vaccine passport will be here. And if we

007accept that, what won't we accept? Lastly, I just want to point out. I just want to point out that a huge problem right now is there needs to be more consideration from what the parents of this district want when it comes to creating COVID-19 policies for our children, not just blindly following some hokey scheme handed down from Jeff Riley with no end in sight. Again, it is very simple. I don't want to be forced to co-parent with the government. And just for a real quick example, straight from this committee's own survey, close to 70% of parents wanted to be mask optional this year. So just keep that in mind. Just keep that in mind. A lot of frustration is coming from parents who want to see more decisions being made at a local level when

008it comes to our kids and their health. President Reagan once said, freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. With that, I'll ask this committee again, please unmask our kids. Thank you. Now before anyone starts, we know the rules are three minutes. and i i let you go over but when you're preparing try to keep within the three minutes okay all right who wants to come up now mr mcquinn do you want them to take the posters back with them can you take the posters back with you if you wouldn't mind please Kate Berry, Charlton. On September 27th, I emailed you all, the school committee, and Mr.

009LaMarche to request that there be a further breakdown of staff and student positive case counts. I was advised by Mr. LaMarche that they were working on adding a staff student delineator to the weekly COVID dashboard. I see that this is not yet a part of the COVID dashboard and would like to know the status of this modification. Secondly, I learned this week that students at a particular school in the district had to engage in the test and stay program as a result of a close contact with another positive student. The student who was positive had a second test done, the results of which were negative. The test and stay requirement for those that were close contacts was then terminated. I have two questions. Are we concerned about the number of times this may be occurring,

010false positives, that result in students being placed in quarantine or undergoing additional daily testing unnecessarily? Two, in a situation like the one described, if the result is determined to be a false positive, is the COVID dashboard updated to reflect this? Hopefully you are all aware of the tests that have been recalled by the FDA. The tests that are used in this district by NACS now made by Abbott have expired. However, we continue to use them because the manufacturer sent a letter advising that the expiration date has been extended. Expiration dates are put in place for a reason. We do not eat expired food, drink expired milk, take expired medication, or I would presume trust the results of an expired pregnancy test. I am wondering why exceeding the expiration date is acceptable in this scenario, especially

011when the results have significant implications for our children. Removing them from school for several days or requiring further daily testing and the potential for additional false results. Simply because the manufacturer said so shouldn't be sufficient. Of course they would say so. all about the money. In looking at the most recent weekly breakdown of positive cases there were eight cases across seven total schools eight cases of nearly 3,500 students equates to a positivity rate of 0.002 I still cannot wrap my head around the extension of this mass mandate but if this is such a health crisis then shouldn't this be on the agenda at each meeting to discuss the health of the district and where things stand and since we are moving into month three of the school year isn't there an opportunity here to revisit

012your recommendations for a safe reopening to see if things may be adjusted especially moving into colder months where the option to be outside may be limited. I hope there is more discussion around mask breaks. And while I appreciate that a letter was sent to Dessie requesting local authority over this issue again, the fact that two members did not sign that letter certainly suggests a lack of unity. You can say that mask mandates are not linked to funding. However, when you refuse to sign because you do not like the tone and are worried about future grants, you are saying exactly that. These masks are linked to the funding. Again, it is all about the money. I will end with this. It is an incredibly difficult time to be a parent. The freedom and option to make

013decisions for our own children has been stripped from us. I know several of you do not have children in the district, but as I said previously, please give some thought to how we may be feeling. You can have compassion and empathy even if you do not agree. I can honestly say I have never experienced anything like this. I have never been ignored in this way and shown such blatant disregard for my questions and concerns, and I know my many others feel the same. Please turn off the TV and mainstream media that is telling you that we are all domestic terrorists and hear us. We are simply concerned parents and advocating for our children to do things like breathe. Your ability to just ignore us, your silence on these issues is deafening and frankly it only

014fuels our frustration. We watch back the live stream. We see you scrolling on your phones. Instead of listening, rolling your eyes as we speak, calling us you people, and making comments under your breath, the mic still picks up. Please reflect on why you wanted a seat at this table, whether 35 years ago or one year ago. When do we all align and realize that the primary responsibility should be to the children? Hi. Shannon Dunnigan, Charlton. I'm here tonight on behalf of my kindergartner. What used to be her right has now become a privilege. You say if she wants to be educated, she must wear a mask. This piece of cloth must be over her face almost 40 hours a week. 40 hours a week. I disagree wholeheartedly. 70% of the parents and staff in this

015district disagree. You know that. Yet you don't care because you want a mask on my kid's face. I came to the last meeting naively very excited to the letter for the letter to the commissioner because as you told us this is all this board can do. Write this letter is the best you can do to get these masks off my kids you said. Then we get the letter and two of you didn't even sign it. Left it blank. What a punch in the gut that was. Unprofessional to say the least but really offended me in the lack of this board's empathy. You guys aren't there every morning at the bus stop helping to put this on, knowing with every fiber of your being you're doing the wrong thing for your child. It eats at you

016as a parent. But you don't care. You want to mask my kids. I'm not an anti-vaxxer or even anti-mask. We wear masks all the time when the so-called science call for it. Now it's not. Other countries, other states, there's no masks for kids. And which state has the lowest COVID cases? Not California that has the strictest mask requirements. Not Vermont, where 71% of the residents are fully vaccinated. Nope, just came out Florida has the lowest COVID cases. And you know their mask policy for their children is hell no. You're on the wrong side of history. It is painfully obvious that this is a liberal board in a conservative town. Last meeting there was a talk about a social media account brought up and so I was curious and what was being talked about I checked

017it and after one minute and only one minute because I couldn't take anymore I knew that this person's values did not align with mine which was obvious walking through that school because the wokeness was palpable and people can be whatever into whatever they want to say whatever they want to I'm all for freedom the problem is personnel becomes policy. Just with this board, personnel becomes policy. And this board wants to mask my kids. And I have a big problem with that. Most parents have a big problem with that. And I could cite you this and I could cite you that, but you're not going to listen. You don't care. Painfully obvious. And I think you all need to reevaluate why you became board members in the first place. Thank you. Marsha Wagner Dudley. Monday, the

018Massachusetts Association of School Committees shared this Washington Post op-ed. Quote, parents claim they have the right to shape their children's education. They don't. End of quote. Another shared perspective from the Mass Association. Parents claim that they have the right to shape their children's curriculum. Parents write... protests are rooted in politics, not U.S. law, which say kids should learn to think for themselves. Is this a joke? Because if politics were kept out of school curriculum, we wouldn't see resolutions for equity, otherwise known as CRT, one-sided climate change indoctrination, the 1619 Project, and sex education deemed age-appropriate by these associations of the schools. taxpayer-funded Massachusetts Association of School Committees calls itself a member-driven association whose mission is to support mass school leaders in their increasingly complex governance role. The organization endorsement of the op-eds links I read

019reveals that it's an association that would sooner keep parents shut out of having any say of their children's education. The communications director, Tracy O'Connell Novick, put this out. It's good to see the DOJ take this seriously. Note that this does include the FBI line reporting, which will go to the FBI field offices. Quote, we learned at the Dudley... Charlton Regional School Committee meetings that a new reading program was adopted outside the usual procedures. But why and who? Please put this on the next agenda meeting to explain to us. Critical race theory is not taught as a subject but injected into reading, social studies, and wherever it can be injected. How much research went into adopting that new reading program and what's really in it? I see that the members sitting at this table in front

020of us, some of them parents at this school, are pulled from many directions and must consider to whom they owe their responsibility. To the tax paying parents who elected them to office or the Mass Association School Board, teachers unions, or Mass Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Which- by the way, just supported bills HB 763 and SB 318, Healthy Youth Act, the material which would be considered indecent and out of order if read on the floor of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Please do your due diligence in researching this next latest governance curriculum affronting our children. Do we have anyone else that would like to come up? Through the chair, I'm David Smolsky, a Charlton resident, and I have three topics tonight. First, I would like to ask the committee to make a motion to

021change the agenda time for Citizens Forum from early in the school committee meeting agenda to later in the agenda. And here's some of the rationale for my request. A number of parents I've spoken with have said they do their best to get to the school committee meetings on time. but it's difficult when fulfilling parental responsibilities, especially for parents of young children with early bedtimes. Having Citizens Forum later in the agenda would also enable parents to offer comments about topics discussed earlier in the meeting. I understand that Citizens Forum isn't a time for questions and answers, but the school committee could benefit from hearing the public's reaction to the committee's discussions and decisions earlier in the meeting. My second topic is another recommendation related to Citizens Forum. Last year, when school committee meetings were hosted on

022Zoom, parents, citizens, and taxpayers were able to participate in Citizens Forum via Zoom. I did that myself. The district obviously embraces technology. The evidence is meetings on Vimeo. Some constituents would like the school committee to consider allowing people to participate in Citizens Forum either in person or through technology like last year. Considering what I mentioned about the difficulty that some parents have attending in person, leveraging technology could be even more inclusive. My third topic also relates to inclusion. We've already heard about hypocritical mask standards for different meetings in school district buildings. For example, masks for tonight, but not at town meetings. Due to mask mandates in school facilities, we've previously heard a recommendation to move school committee meetings to other venues. One parent's reason for the request is that English is her secondary language, and

023understanding words through masks without the benefit of seeing the delivery with facial features, mouths moving, having these things, restricting volume, that makes it difficult for people to understand what's being said, and that can be very challenging at times. I don't understand how a mask mandate can apply to one kind of meeting in a school building, but not another. So if the school committee isn't interested in changing the meeting venues to locations where masks aren't required, I'm asking the committee to make a motion to promote consistency and drop the political science mask rule in these school committee meetings. Please respect the people who want to wear them as well as those who don't. Thank you for your time and consideration. I had to follow all that, so I'll start with saying I agree with all of

024that. Jamie Publico, Dudley. I think it's safe to say you have a lot of people very curious as to why you mandate masks at these meetings, but not at the town meetings, as was just said. Our kids are covered up all day long playing sports with masks. Not even the NBA plays basketball with masks on. But our kids are. This mandate from DESE will keep getting extended. You all know that. So I'd like to know when you're going to stand up with us. When are you going to stop just doing what you're told? You say you're not for mandating the vaccine. The FDA just approved for five and up. So when they try to mandate that in our schools, where will you stand then? Will you fight with us or will you just do what

025you're told? When will you stop putting funding before our children? The majority of the parents in this district and all over the country oppose CRT and CSE. There's not one single person in the school system that is qualified to teach our kids the things you learn in comprehensive sexual education, nor should they be. You say you won't incorporate CRT in our district, yet you have a Choose Love survey which is aligned with the new character and social-emotional development standards, which includes Cassell standards. Cassell is funded by the very people who promote and fund CRT. I'd like to know if you received more grant money for implementing these practices. Do I think every principal and teacher is out to indoctrinate our kids? No. I believe we also speak for a good amount of them. I'm floored

026at the fact that most of them get told how to do their job by people that have never had a day in a classroom. But I do know that those above you are pushing for these agendas that go against many beliefs of the majority. When will you stand up with those that elected you? 25 states have withdrew from the National School Board Association after the letter labeling parents domestic terrorists. Where have you stood with that? We understand at a local level sometimes you feel your hands are tied, but many others are fighting for what is right. When will you? I would like to come forward. Okay, seeing. This will end the Citizens Forum for this evening. We will go on to our next agenda item, communications. And Mr. Lamarche, do you have any communications this

027evening? I do not have any communications this evening. Okay. How about our members? Any communications? And I don't have any. So we'll go on to student report. Mr. Trevor Wallace. All right. I'm going to try and talk nice and slow today, per the advice of Mr. LaMarche. So I'd like to start this spiel off by congratulating the Shepherd Hill Marching Band, who visited the Micah Massachusetts Finals in Quincy last weekend, and we achieved five stars in every category and a perfect score overall. As someone who's been in the band for five years, that's the first time I've ever seen that happen. So we look toward the culmination of our competition season with the U.S. Band's New England Finals and the Nesbitt New England Championship this coming weekend. Anyways, Shepherd Hill is looking toward the end

028of our first quarter on November 5th and our first quarter report cards on the 12th. Early application deadlines for most colleges are on November 1st, so seniors get on that. And tomorrow, October 28th, is an early release day for all students to allow for parent-teacher conferences. Looking at sports, fall sports in the district are quickly coming to a close after a largely normal season. Our field hockey and girls soccer programs ended their seasons last week with consolation games in the inaugural Central Mass Tournament. Boys soccer drew the number four seed in Division I for Central Mass Tournament. And after a big 5-0 win against Doherty, they lost a hard-fought quarterfinals match against the five-seed Neshoba, 1-0 on Saturday under the lights. They're currently ranked at 18 in their division and are going to qualify for

029the new statewide tournament. Cheers preparing for the annual Hill Invitational this weekend, and they were selected to host the Mid-Watch League Championship next weekend. Our cross-country programs are wrapping up their regular season schedules, and they have Invitationals and state tournaments remaining, along with the Mid-Watch League Championship this weekend in Fitchburg. Volleyball drew the number six seed in the CMAS tournament and beat Lemonster 3-0 at home in the first round, but faced a tough opponent at number three Shrewsbury last Friday, getting knocked out in the quarterfinals. They're presently power-ranked at 29 in their division, and will likely qualify for the new statewide tournament. Our football program is under the most difficult part of its schedule, where they will play their last regular season game this Friday at 7 p.m. in Grafton. It remains to be seen

030if they will qualify for the statewide tournament, but they will have at least two more games, as well as their annual Thanksgiving matchup at Tantasqua. Our middle school cross-country programs finished their season last week and began celebrating the return of their sport this week. Despite many challenges with transportation and weather, the Dudley and Charlton middle school soccer teams have had much success this season and will be finishing their schedules this week, culminating in a crosstown game next Wednesday, 11-3, under the lights at Shepherd Hill on the Carmignani Memorial Turf Field. Also, Tantaskwa is hosting a Thanksgiving football game this year, and there's a change to tradition this year. Instead of playing on Thanksgiving Day, they have scheduled us to play the night before Thanksgiving, Wednesday, November 24th at 5.30 p.m. Winter athletic registration is now

031open and will close on Monday, November 8th. Triathlons are set to begin on Monday, November 29th. Winter sports include boys and girls basketball, boys and girls indoor track, wrestling, and cheer. Winter sports registration will open at the middle schools on Monday, November 11th. More information will be forthcoming. We will be offering basketball and winter cheer club for the middle schools. If you like music, make sure to check out the Shepherd Hill Winter Percussion Ensemble. which is a percussion group that competes across the state during the winter and is a truly amazing experience, so you can actually feel free to reach out to me if you're interested in that. Again, registration for all other winter sports will close on Monday, November 8th, so make sure you have your physicals, registration freeze, and concussion tests squared away

032before then. And last but certainly not least, the National Honor Society's Haunting on the Hill extravaganza will be taking place this Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. at Shepherd Hill, Rain or Shine. We will ensure a quality drive-thru Halloween experience for the children regardless of the weather, and I can assure you that it will be worth your $2. All proceeds from this event will go towards our Thanksgiving food drive. Again, this is a drive-thru trick-or-treating style event that will take place at Shepherd Hill this Friday from 6 to 8 p.m., and I hope to see you all there in your best Halloween costumes. And that completes everything I had to share with you all today. Thank you all for your time. Any questions? I just want to make a clarification. Trevor, you mentioned that October

03328th is an early release for all students, but I think it's just 5 to 12? Yeah, just 5 to 12. Thanks. Sorry, I just wanted to say thank you for adding the middle schools in. I appreciated that information. No problem. I just wanted clarification. The Friday night's event, so there is no rain date. It is Friday, rain or shine. The original rain date was Saturday. It's going to rain on Saturday as well. So we decided to keep it on Friday. Thank you. Any other questions for Trevor? Just a comment that Unified Basketball for the Hill also started their first game today. Wonderful. It was out of the way. Anyone else? did a great job they had they played at algonquin and had um both teams they did a great job it was great to see

034awesome trevor you did a great job thank you for informing us on what's going on thank you so much okay that brings us up to superintendent's report Madam Chair and School Committee, I do have a couple of items to share. One was the Shepparton Regional High School homecoming events that were the weekend before last was very successful. The weather mostly cooperated up until the end of the football game. The football game was wall-to-wall people. In adults, students, and community members, everyone appeared to be having a great time. A particular note to me was the performance of the marching band at halftime, which includes our own Trevor Wallace in there. They are truly an amazing group and in their performance. They certainly had a very large crowd for their performance at the homecoming game. It is

035great to know that our students and school events continue to return to pre-COVID experiences. We still have a bit to go, but we will continue to look for ways to meet pre-COVID expectations. This past Sunday, the Dudley PTO held a fall festival on the fields near Dudley Elementary School on School Street. I want to publicly thank Dudley PTO President Mary Norton and all of the Dudley PTO for a great event for our students. There were clearly, to my estimation, there were over 1,000 people there. It was fantastic. And there was a rumor that there was a very tall scarecrow there as well with Dudley Elementary School. Keep in mind, I do have a twin brother. But unfortunately, he's in Minneapolis, and he is about 5'9", so he didn't pull off the scarecrow event. But I

036really enjoyed the event, and again, there were over 1,000 people there, which was totally fantastic. I do have an item that I am requesting support from the school committee from the Shepparton Regional High School Athletics Department. They are looking for support, as they started to last year, regarding lacrosse, boys and girls lacrosse. They are looking to apply for an MIAA middle school waiver for DMS and CMS for eighth grade students only and to explore a co-op waiver agreement. What this means is that our Boys and Girls Lacrosse team, we are looking to continue to offer that as a comprehensive competitive program. And this is the first step to ensure that we have enough participants to participate in the Boys and Girls Lacrosse at Shepherd Hill Regional High School. The numbers have been waning over the

037past few years. I did work with Athletic Director Jim Scanlon and secondary principals to ensure that we keep this program and to keep it competitive. And so we were looking for your support to start the application process with MIAA, again, for a middle school waiver for eighth grade students only, and to explore a co-op with another community if needed. Okay, I'll add a motion to stop approval to start the application. So moved. discussion Miss LaMarche does this mean that we're looking to offer lacrosse to eighth grade students that will play with our Shepherd Hill students correct yes thank you you said you might have a co-op with other districts do you have any districts in mind that you're thinking of no but the first step is to apply for it so that you can explore

038that type of relationship with another community but it'll be in this area Yeah, we would look in this area. There have been co-ops in the past with, not necessarily, like for example hockey. We have a co-op with hockey with Auburn Public Schools. So it would be something similar to that. Okay, thanks. I'm not saying it would be Auburn, just using that as an example. Anyone else? Just a question. How many other schools have eighth graders playing at the high school level? It's actually been more common than you think across our state because the numbers have waned with participation in certain sports. The teams that I can think of the most are football. Some schools can't field enough participation in football, so they do pull up eighth graders. Hockey is another one from some districts as

039well. I don't have the exact number, but it's more common than you would think. Okay, and will our AD Scanlon make sure that... our eighth grade parents are able to access all the concussion protocol trainings and that would that would that's a requirement perfect great just as an aside when shepherd who was a 7 to 12 school if you're in the same building you could have a seventh grade on the team it's just that the middle school is on part of the physical plant correct if you if you have middle school connected to your high school it's an automatic thing without going through this process so in the past we did have probably did have seven eighth graders playing on varsity sports yep i'm pretty sure i remember so anyone else Okay, I'll take a

040vote. All in favor? Motion carries. It's unanimous. Thank you. My next topic is COVID. COVID continues to be in our schools and part of our existence. That's obviously unfortunate in many ways. I feel that the day will come, though, when we collectively understand how COVID becomes part of our lives moving forward. We are not there yet. We have made incredible strides to understand how to bring ourselves back to pre-COVID student experiences in our schools. We will continue to move in that direction each and every day. Over the past couple of weeks, we've had a consistent number of cases with a dramatic increase in close contacts, not positive cases. We appreciate the support of close contact families when we contact you and walk through the various protocols that are used this school year. I also want

041to add that with increased incidence of home testing, our test and stay program, PCR testing, and varying testing protocols, again, the testing protocols have changed drastically for this school year in comparison to the past. When we contact a family, you may think that the protocols are very confusing. I don't disagree. Again, our school nurses are working diligently to provide the right next steps to each family they contact. We collectively appreciate your patience and understanding. We all want our students to attend in-person learning each and every day. We must ensure that health, safety, and well-being of everyone is in doing so. Please keep your child home if they are sick and you suspect COVID. But again, we will one day hopefully move forward to a place where we understand how this becomes part of our existence.

042And as always if you have questions about COVID within our district, please feel free to contact Ms. Stolberg, the COVID coordinator for our district. And that concludes, nope, I have one more item, sorry. I am announcing to you as a school committee, which you are aware, that we received a letter from the DCTA, the Teachers Association, to inform the committee that their desire to enter into negotiations for a successive contract. Their current contract ends August 31st, 2022. This will be my first negotiations here with the DCTA, meaning the Teachers Association, and I look forward to working with the school committee and the DCTA negotiations team to negotiate a fair and successive contract. Okay, and do you have a date yet? I don't have a date, a starting date. You're going to negotiate with your team

043and you will come up with one. The next step is for me to reach out to our negotiations team, school committee's negotiations team, and schedule a time and start the process. Now Jamie is on it, Catherine is, and that concludes the superintendent's report this evening. Okay, thank you. That brings us to new business. Report of the Director of Finance and Operations and the Budget and Finance Subcommittees. Director Matthews first. Thank you, Mrs. O'Kane. The Budget and Finance Subcommittee met on Wednesday, October 20th at 3 p.m. We met via video conferencing. On the agenda, we reviewed the budget schedule and finalized that. That's up posted on the website with all the dates that the subcommittee will be meeting. Also on the agenda, we had some discussion on school committee budgetary priorities as far as what do

044we as a school committee want to see incorporated into the next fiscal year 23 budget. So a couple of things that we talked about at the meeting was, for example, these would be high level district global priorities. as far as what we want to accomplish for the district next budget year. Social and emotional learning, capital, the impact on COVID and supporting students and helping students with the catch-up periods. Those are just examples that we talked about as a subcommittee. And I'm just bringing it forward tonight as requested by the subcommittee that if everybody on the school committee could start thinking about priorities. and bring them to the november meeting and we'll have this as an agenda item mrs o'quane's going to add this to the agenda so we can incorporate school committee's ideas for budget

045needs in and and kind of work those together with district administration and building principals needs and for the next budget year so that's just something to keep in mind for the next the november school committee meeting um additionally we talked a bit a little bit about capital and and I serve on the capital safety subcommittee with mrs. Terry so it's nice to have that that mix and capital is going to be a another a huge priority going forward as far as the needs is the the biggest topic that we've been talking about for a while is the the roofs on Dudley and Charlton middle schools those are going to be one of the top priorities so again keep in mind capital and those needs going forward And the other piece that we talked about, and

046we continue to talk about it here and in budget and finance, is continuing to work with the town officials in both towns to develop a sustainable budget. It's key that we have a relationship. school committee along with both towns to identify the priorities and the needs and and kind of reiterate a Sustainable budget and that's a goal that we all need to work towards and I know budget and finance is going to meet with capital and with the towns so That's all I had I my colleagues that feel free to jump in if I missed anything on the subcommittee, but that's all I had any questions Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Matthew. Thank you very much. First for the committee, some donations this evening for Charlton Elementary School. They received checks from Planet Aid for

047a total of $124. I recommend acceptance of that donation. I entertain a motion for the acceptance of $124 donation. Second. Discussion? Seeing none. All in favor? Motion carries. It's unanimous. Thank you. Next, speaking of budget updates, the FY22 budget update. So the final state revenues are on track to meet our budgeted revenues. The final assessments for state charges of school choice out and charter school assessments did increase by $40,967. With the departure of our former director of pupil and personnel services and the... new incoming one we we still need to go through and reconcile our needs um that have presented themselves to the budget that was discussed and approved last february It does appear that expenses did increase somewhat, but it looks like we have expected revenues from grants that can help offset some or

048all of those expenses. It's been a record year of hiring, and we're still finalizing some contracts for a replacement staff of replacement staff. I expect to bring forward an updated FY22 budget to the school committee for the December meeting. I don't know if there are any questions. And lastly, just a note as we approach... planning for the FY23 budget, energy markets do impact the school district. While it's not our largest budget line item, it certainly is one that can have an overall impact with seven schools and seven facilities. The district does have contracts in place for electricity and natural gas, and both of those contracts expire roughly a year from now. In doing research now for renewals, pricing has increased dramatically. We all can recognize what's happening. in our own lives, but this is certainly

049a systemic increase that has been. not seen in the past 10 years or so. The quote for renewal shows close to a 50% increase for the cost of natural gas compared to our current contract. Natural gas is not widely used in the district, not widely available, but it does certainly impact electricity pricing. So we requested forward-looking pricing on this, and we're certainly going to pay attention to those markets and hope that... Hope that life overall, pricing and other things, goes back to normal the way that we knew things a couple of years ago. The markets are very volatile, more so now than any time in the past decade. Contracts that are quoted in the morning are not being ordered in the afternoon due to price movements currently. That's unheard of. The whole point of locking

050in a price is that you have time to execute the contract. So, again, the market has just been... But while we don't require any action right now, these potential price increases need to be recognized in the FY23 budget. We work with competitive energy services through the French River Education Collaborative as our energy broker. And hopefully there'll be that ideal moment where prices go down. We can act on it and secure. equal uh or slightly higher prices than we currently have not uh extract exorbitant uh and highly increased prices so just an update but again a piece that does impact our budget okay thank you report of the capital outlay subcommittee chair terry thank you um tonight we actually have sorry i get my notes all in order here um we actually have our facilities manager

051mr siniscalchi close enough he's here he came up to talk to us as well but i'm going to give you our notes and if you want to come up you're welcome to come up and meet the committee um so our most recent safety subcommittee meeting was held via zoom on 10 22 although now i think it was 10 23 but i my notes say 10 23 2. thank you At this meeting we reconfirm the priority list of absolutely essential needs for the district based upon most the most dire needs Tonight the document you have in front of you mine is color-coded If you have it here, I printed enough that in case our committee didn't have them So anybody in the audience that wants them I have those here So this document detailing this list

052is available to each of you, as you will see, and I'm sure it won't surprise any of you, especially since Mr. LaFerri already said it this evening. That's totally fine. We've been talking about it for a while. So the top priorities are the roof at CMS, the roof at DMS, and the bleachers at Shepherd Hill Regional High School. Of note, each of these items that is listed is a dire need for this district. Both of the roofs are under constant care and repair from our dedicated custodial staff. These repairs are no longer enough, and the rain this year has continued to solidify how much each of these schools needs a new roof. as i mentioned at our last school committee meeting not only have we discussed the need for purchase of bleachers at shepherd hill

053rather than continue the continued high expense rental recently the bleachers presented a significant safety hazard which you'll recall has been repaired by now but the age of these rental bleachers and the costs associated with renting them has provided reason that this item has been become front and center in our safety plan the fire alarm panels and devices have been identified as another area of immediate need at DMS including the fire pump at DES and at Mason Road and district-wide the need for improved camera and communication technology has continued to be discussed as a high area of need Finally, on the list of immediate needs, we are proposing an architectural review of each school building with the exception of Shepherd Hill. And the reason for that is because we're hoping that it will fall under the

054MSBA. I said that right, correctly? Okay. Application. This review will provide a true understanding of where we are at for each of our buildings in order to continue our path and trajectory for a living and breathing five-year plan for our district, which will help inform our Board of Selectmen as we make decisions, our finance committees in each community as we make decisions, and a well-informed committee, including a school committee, can make solid recommendations and decisions regarding the building needs of the district. Our meeting was very productive and allowed us the opportunity to learn from David Esenthal, who was the vice president at Unibank. He met with us to provide fiscal advisory services as we begin the process of looking at how to move through the process of moving on these incredibly important safety needs. The

055last thing I wanted to let you know, which has nothing to do with this actual capital plan in front of you, is that you've probably heard me talk about it many, many times at this meeting. that we needed to have, I called it paneling over the windows at certain schools that we have, that as you walked up from the outside, you could actually see into the cafeteria at Charlton, I'm sorry, at Heritage School and at Dudley Middle School. Well, I'm happy to report today I went and picked up my son, and that is in place. And next time you make it to either one of those schools, you'll see it there, and it does provide safety to our students that are sitting there in the cafeteria at Heritage and at the Dudley Middle School. middle

056school there was a visible area as well and it's reflective now so it looks like you're looking at a mirror and so the kids or the people that are in the cafeteria can see out but people walking up to the building can no longer see in so i just want to say a major thank you to our dedicated custodial staff because this has been something that i have personally felt very strong about for a long period of time and i was psyched today when i went up there and i saw that it was in place so Mr. Scalcini if you it's uh nope tell me how to say it Siniscalchi I wrote it that way please add to what I might have missed no you were very thorough I've been told that before good evening

057madam chair members of the board superintendent LaMarche and members of the community I have some notes here that as I was preparing them last night I actually reached out to my high school teacher that had a course in public speaking so after 35 years I'm still in contact with one of my teachers that made a difference so as a matter of background I spent most of my career 30 years in design construction management and facilities my first tasks after arriving here on September 7th was to understand each building's needs and nuances also understanding each building's envelope and mechanical systems was critical as well As I went through each building and met with the head custodians, one thing came apparent quite quickly. It's the dedication, the condition, the cleanliness, and the upkeep of each building in

058this district is quite amazing. It's a testament to the dedication and continued effort of the custodial staff and maintenance staff to maintain a clean, safe, and inviting facility for the children to learn and grow. They should be commended for their work. Having said that, we cannot get away from the fact that some of the assets are aging. Some building components have come to the end of their design life cycle, and replacement has to be addressed much sooner or later. There are much larger issues that can't be handled by just daily maintenance and work orders. What particularly worries me is obviously the conditions of the roofs at CMS and DMS. I reviewed the reports by the design professionals and inspected the roofs, and I've personally been up on each roof. Without significant investment on our new

059roofs, we will run the risk of further damaging the building envelope. If that happens, then future costs to repair or replace damaged roof decks or equipment could run into hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more. I've also looked at proposals to upgrade life safety devices life safety is always a concern devices and equipment do need upgrading at DMS CMS Dudley Elementary Charlton Elementary and Mason Road I recommended that these upgrades be included in the tier one approach if there's any questions I'd be more than happy to answer them I just said, look at the bleachers and it was 1.1 million in September. Now it's 2.4 million two months later. What was it, one month later, what happened there? So we were finally able to- speak with Gale associates who had done the architectural work

060at the field and they actually had some basic designs for the bleachers as well as a new building including restrooms and plumbing and all of that stuff so you know while we while we had the cost of the bleachers themselves and the Press box and you know ad a compliance and all of that. It's those other costs that really were much more than we were anticipating. So this is a much firmer number than it had been before. question do you have to put the first bathrooms in because then they say you didn't if something wasn't there some kind of wiggle room there or something at once so so far we've been allowed to open our uh the high school uh for uh folks as well as have the porta potties there and that's been acceptable

061um but it seems that when you put in permanent bleachers when you make a permanent solution you do have to have a permanent solution for that as well so that 2.4 million includes facilities But again, it's the estimate from architects. While it should be valid, if we do this project in three years, obviously that price would be different. Okay. All right. Thanks. If I may, Mr. Zolkow. I just want to say, you know, in 2017, we were very close to bringing something along these lines forward. Again, with the field being new at that point in time, recognizing the issues with the roofs. charlton middle and dudley middle um but we were asked to do to go for the operational override instead um so this has certainly been delayed by a number of years but i'm

062so pleased to see it coming forward finally i really know it has been a long time for me thank you thank you thanks for coming in report of the assistant superintendent and the curriculum subcommittee for teaching and learning and Chair Comigliani probably wants to start first. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee. In our elementary schools, instruction using CKLA materials is well underway. Our early grades literacy consultant, Mary Ann Perry, along with myself and each building principal, along with other district level officers, has visited each elementary school for the purpose of building relationships as our grant team has our first meeting tomorrow, Thursday, October 28th. Classroom teachers are using the CKLA instructional materials, coordinating with colleagues, and implementing lessons on a daily basis. As the design principles of CKLA are embedded

063within the science of reading, our grant team will focus on ensuring a successful implementation process. Our grant team will meet regularly throughout the course of this year, connecting the known science of reading with our classroom instruction. I want to publicly thank and acknowledge the 35-plus Dudley-Charlton Regional School District teachers and administrators that are doing this work. As a follow up to our last meeting, the Amplify Professional Development Specialist in an attempt to address the substandard professional development offering in early October. We set a new time for that session and that's going to be for the grade two team on Tuesday, November 2nd in the afternoon. all of our stakeholders will continue to meet discuss and refine our process with regard to ckla adoption feedback at all levels is vital to ensuring that teachers and students

064have everything they need to be successful additionally i am reaching out to other similar districts to the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District that have successfully onboarded CKLA so that we can optimize their successes and learn from the challenges that they've experienced as any new initiative requires much planning. I'm pleased to report that our middle school math team met this afternoon. Our purpose was to create and establish a roadmap of activities for this year. to discuss the value of ed reports and curate as evaluation tools for high quality instructional materials, and to establish our priorities in consideration of new instructional materials. By developing our timelines and goals, followed by then meeting with other similarly positioned districts as part of the DESE network, we are positioned to review, pilot, and come to consensus on the adoption of new

065middle-level mathematical instructional materials. Just last week, Project Lead the Way held their regular conference at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Educators from both Dudley and Charlton Middle School and Shepherd Hill Regional High School attended this conference. The Dudley-Charlton Regional School District is one of only a select set of Massachusetts school districts to have embedded Project Lead the Way within the entire school system. Our next steps entail bringing together educators from the middle and secondary level to develop a deeper understanding of the essential knowledge and skills required as students ascend from the middle to high school level. touring Shepherd Hill with principal chaplain the depth and breadth of project lead the way offerings create numerous high quality pathways for students building a comprehensive bridge to the college experience The Dudley-Charlton Regional School Committee Professional Development Team will come

066together on Tuesday, November 9th, to plan the offerings for our District PD Day on January 26, 2022. This team has members from the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District teaching staff, paraprofessional staff, and administrative team. One final note to add from our subcommittee meeting this past week is about MCAS results. I know that people have had some questions and concerns regarding MCAS. As I know many of our community members are aware, student MCAS results were recently sent home. Please know that these scores represent one snapshot in time. following two years of instructional adjustments and decreased time in school. These results should be viewed as a starting point, framing our work going forward. It goes without saying that the past two years were disruptive in every facet of student life and that the drop in scores is predominantly

067a function of this, not a reflection of students, educators, or families. The DCRSD is committed to using this data as a means of growth and improvement to help continue to move our students forward. And that concludes my report. Thank you. Any questions? Okay. Kathy? I'll just tag on to that one. So we did meet on Monday, the Teaching and Learning Subcommittee, and everything pretty much Dr. Ackerman said, we got the update on CKLA. We did have a good discussion on a new policy of curriculum evaluation, development, and adoption. So we had the beginnings discussion of that that came from our Policy Subcommittee, and then that information will be sent back to Policy Subcommittee for consideration. um we also did discuss um mcas results and different things that the district is doing to support our students

068and just the idea that we need to really make sure that we let parents know what the district is doing because i think you know jamie and i both discussed there's so many things that are happening for our kids that we're just not aware of and i think that it'd be good communication for our for our parents so and i think that was that was about it thank you Thank you, Kathy. Okay, that concludes the curriculum subcommittee for teaching and learning. Next on the agenda is update Department of Elementary and Secondary Education mandates. Madam Chair and the School Committee, as everyone learned yesterday that the Commissioner of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education updated his requirement for masking to go through January 15, 2022. What I can share with you is during our conversation

069with the Commissioner, there was some discussion, what's called preliminary discussion, that on January 15th that the Board of Education should return the decision of masking back to locally controlled decision making. it's preliminary in every way but it did it did come up so i wanted to make sure that i shared that with all of you the other point i want to make is i know that member mrs terry i brought up the vaccination percentage and again i'm not in a position to right now unless the committee gives me other direction to fold vaccination into our particular program within our school district but as of october 19th because one of the off ramps is asking for a waiver from the from the department if you have 80 vaccination rate for school-aged children a number of districts

070have asked for that waiver but they have not implemented them at this point in time there's only one that's taking a very slow process to it but i just wanted to report out as of october october 19th if i put the average percentage for 12 to 19 year olds in Charlton it's around 62 percent and and I agree with Mrs. Terry it's give or take a few students who may not be it's all all school-aged children within the community of Charlton it's not just Dudley Charlton Regional School District so I would put a plus a plus a couple of percentage on there if you remove some of those students and for Dudley it's it's averaging at 44 percent I just thought I would at least report that out. But once again, I'm not unless the

071committee asked me to do something different with vaccinations. It's not on my it's not on my radar for the for with those percentages to apply for a waiver. The other thing, if I could, there's been a small amount of districts that applied for a waiver for other things, for example, positivity rate. And another is for a middle high school that was in the same facility where one of the two entities had the 80%. Both of those have been denied by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. So I just want to point out that it is my responsibility to continue to learn and read and understand and communicate. and try to provide as much information as possible on that particular topic so that's all i have for that thank you you're welcome well that brings

072us up to um update policy subcommittee chair caballo thank you mr ducoy We met two weeks ago and the first thing we went over, the comments that we received either from the public or from staff members. And one of the comments for the public, Mr. Lamarche addressed last meeting was, what exactly is that alphabetical system? Why is it A, C, B, and B, D, E? And it does seem kind of cumbersome. And some of us would know when it would just be by numbers, like 1,000 was about school, 2,000 about students, which we thought was easier. But as Mr. Lamarche referred to it, it comes from the National School Board Association Classification System. So we're basically using a national. system and if you have trouble mr lamarche read the different categories two meetings ago but

073if you want to look it up it's under the if you want to what those letters stand for you go to on our home page go to about w charlton regional school district click down to district policies it will tell you that a stands for foundations b stands for school board so it is explained but you have to go looking under our home page yeah yeah sorry to interrupt just a comment about the the acronyms that you just mentioned, I'm looking at the first policy, harassment, ACAB. In this day and age, that can be a pretty offensive acronym. I'm not going to go into what it could stand for, but especially coupled with the word harassment, I feel like that's something that could draw some attention that's just not necessary. Okay, that's something to think

074about. That's something to think about. Yeah, yeah. Okay, thank you. Do you want to just repeat that question for the people at home that may not have heard it so that at least it's on record? The question was brought up by Mr. Smolsky. The acronym ACAB could be taken as offensive in this day and age, especially when it's tied with the word harassment. So that's something we should look into. Thank you. Thank you. And we will be talking with that policy first, ACAB harassment. This is a second read. There was absolutely no change from the first read because some have a few tweaks. But this one is exactly the same as the last time. Correct, Mr. Lamache? There's no change in ACAB. There's no change. There's no change. So we'd like feedback on it, except

075for what we just heard. So I would like to go for a second read on that, Mrs. O'Connor. Why don't you take one at a time? So I would like to take a motion first to waive the reading of policy ACAB. Do I have a second? Discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Okay, motion carries. It's unanimous. And then I'll entertain a motion for the second reading and adoption of the policy ACAB. So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Okay. Any more discussion? Through the chair? Yes. So I would like to table this. I would like to actually request that you guys pull the motions off so that we can reevaluate the acronym because it doesn't make any sense for us to approve this if we're going to have to come back and go through

076the process again for changing an acronym if you decide it's appropriate. Do we have to hold the policy up with... I think if we take it as a second read, then come back and we probably could just change the acronym. I thought second read was a final read. Yes, but... I don't think it has anything to do with the letters, because when we changed from the letter numbing to letting system, we didn't approve that. We just did it. So I don't mind. It's up to the committee, but I don't think it would change. It doesn't change the policy, so I don't know if we really have to hold it up. I would vote for the policy, but I would like you to come back. and just read letter about the lettering but we're approving the

077policy in other words right now but i think it's up to the committee we'll just come back and change the acronym acronym okay Madam Chair, if I just change it now. Okay. Do you have something? Just call it AC. Again, ACAB is the consistent, the national, state, whatever. I never knew what Mr. Smolsky was talking about until I just looked it up. Yeah, I didn't either. But just change it now. Change it to ACBB or ACBBBA or something like that. Just change it so it's local to us. Doesn't it have to make sense like in a sequence? Do we want to do that to amend it for that change? What are we going to call it then? Let's decide. Let's do this. We'll take back the second. We'll take back the motion. Let's think of

078what we want to call it, and we'll just do it again. Okay? At the next meeting. Again, there's no other feedback on the policy, so I would just change JCAB now. I'll change the letters and be done with it. What letters we want. Because this is being held up for the desi. And this is an important one. This was Title IX stuff. The feedback from the state, so we can't keep holding this. This is one of the ones that we're being mandated to enforce. I think we just changed the lettering. Go ahead. I didn't mention the comment to hold you guys up. I'm glad you told us. Do whatever you got to do with it. But that was a good point. So we can't change the lettering, Jean. Through the chair, there is no ACBB

079currently, so we could just amend it to that. Okay. Say it again because I. There is no ACBB currently. So we could just change it to that. We're not going to be interfering with a different policy. Okay. So do you think we should start over again? We can't change it. We're in the middle of a vote. So why don't we start over? yeah withdraw the second we'll just start over with the new lettering second okay i did yeah okay okay you're gonna withdraw i've made it yeah so the motion's on the floor now i'm going to entertain a motion for our second reading and approval of the harassment in the sula repeat those letters acbb acbb Okay, so do I have a motion? So moved. Okay. Do I have a second? Second. Okay, any more

080discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? motion carries it's unanimous that that was the easiest i think yeah i think so too this way this way it's smooth and we've got it and madam chair when i look that up when i do a quick google search on that it's like atlantic uh community bank bankers bank or some some some banking or something like that i don't think acbb is the same so i think we're safe okay good okay catherine okay you're next yep okay the next one is policy jic student discipline this is a second reading and we did get a comment from an administrator and also mrs carmignani made this comment a couple of times we added the section instead of just saying the building principal principal would be in charge of this For anything

081under 10 days, we also add in a building administrator. So therefore, someone other than the principal can actually handle under 10 days. After 10 days, it has to be the principal. Correct, Mr. Lamache? Correct. And it should be highlighted on there. And so it's all highlighted. You probably don't have a yellow copy. The only change on this from the first reading, we added a building administrator every place where it said principal, up to 10 days. And that's the only change from the first read. Correct. All right. Could I just ask, go ahead, I have a question afterwards. No, it has to do with the last policy. When we do these policies, some are amendments and some are adoptions, and there is a difference. This policy on harassment, we change it so much. Would that be

082considered an adoption or an amendment? Just an approval of the amendment. Yeah, but you have to, on the bottom, tell whether it's an amendment or an adoption. I would believe it's an adoption. Okay. Because it was a wholesale change. That's what I thought. This one's an amendment. And next time on the agenda, maybe in parentheses you can put adoption or amendment. Right, because there is a difference. We'll be sure to do it the right way. Okay. Okay? So this one's the adoption. Okay. So I'll entertain a motion first to waive the reading of JIC. So moved. Second. Do I have a second? Second. Okay. Any discussion? Okay. Seeing none, all in favor? Motion carries. It's unanimous. Now, we will, I'll entertain a motion to approve the adoption and our second reading for JIC student discipline.

083Okay. So moved. All right. Do I have a second? Second. Okay, any more discussion? This is an adopt. You said it was an adopt. Well, the other one is. This was a wholesale thing as well. Right, so these first two are adoptions because they're basically brand new. So any discussion on it? Go ahead, Kathy. I just have a question. It talks about, just lost it, it talks about that you're not supposed to use academic punishment yet. Second paragraph down, principals and staff shall not use academic punishment. of any form as a consequence to inappropriate behaviors or actions by students. But then we go in and we have in-school suspensions, which in a way, I don't know, can you link that to academic punishment because you're withholding the student from class or? You're not withholding them

084from the access to the curriculum for that day. Okay. So to me, an academic suspension means if you got into a fight, we're going to fail you in all your classes. Okay. That's an academic. You can't do that is my read on it. I just want to make sure we're all on the same page on that. Yeah, because when they're in-house suspension, aren't they supposed to get the work from their teachers? Yeah. It's just they're not in class. They're still doing work. They're still doing their work from their classes, right? Correct. And then it actually says the student has the opportunity to make academic progress as required by law in that. Any other discussion? Okay, we'll take a vote. All in favor? Motion carries, it's unanimous. Okay, Catherine? Okay, the next one is BEDH public

085comment. As you might notice, we just worked on this in March, but two members of our school committee went to a webinar in which the people who ran the webinar said that rather than calling it citizens forum, it's more realistic and more appropriate to call it public comment agenda item. So we went through and every place we saw citizens forum, we changed to public comment agenda item. So that's the first change. The other change is in recognition of concerns from the audience, instead of saying you must give your address, we changed to town of residence. So you just have to say whether it's Dudley or Charlton. You don't have to say where you live. So those are the two changes on that one. This would be for a first read. And this is the first

086read? The first read. Okay. Okay. This is an amendment. This is an amendment. I get that. Yeah, we should put that down. So, first of all, I'll entertain a motion to waive policy, waive the reading of policy BEDH. Do I have a motion? So moved. Okay. Do I have a second? Second. Okay. Discussion? Seeing... Go ahead, Kathy. Oh, no, that's... Sorry. That's on the waning. Okay. Seeing none, all in favor? Motion carries, it's unanimous. Okay, now I'll entertain a motion for our first read, and it's an amendment for BEDH, public comment. So moved. Okay. Second. Discussion. Through the chair. Just for the public's benefit, this will go out to the public after tonight. Correct. Yes. I just, because that way they see it and they understand. It's the feedback, yeah. That's what I mean, but

087this particular one really affects the public, so I want them to be able to see it right away. So that's all. Thank you. Kathy, you had something. I did. I just had some feedback. One of the things that we keep hearing is that when someone comes to public comment or citizens forum at this point and they have a question that can simply be answered. By our superintendent that is appropriate to be asking the school committee I feel that we should be giving them that answer and we shouldn't have to wait to give them that answer I mean if it's a simple question if it's something that involves going You know, maybe a meeting or something that they could then be referred to somebody but I don't understand why we don't answer questions if they're Now

088who interpret who interprets simple Because then someone might say that is simple, but we feel no it isn't. Do you know what I'm saying? I don't know if it gets to be too confusing, but I do think that we can do better as a committee about collecting questions and having responses at a future meeting, like maybe an agenda item that says these came up and here are the answers type of thing. That might be something that we should do for clarity, consistency, transparency. Shouldn't it be on the agenda anyway if we're going to? suppose they come up with something and we should discuss it it should be for the next that's what i'm saying because you can't discuss it because of open meeting law you can't discuss it in that moment if it's not on

089we didn't post so sorry go go ahead but i see your point some of the questions like miss berry today asked about staff and student breakdowns and whether they could be on the on the covid dashboard but it's a simple question that i think that we can say you know what Yes, we can do that. I'm going to look into that like I think that there's certain things that we should be able to easily say Yes, no, it's the interpretation. Yes, it's interpretation But there are some times where it has been a simple question and should be answered I just concerned of the time where Some members of the public may think that's simple, but it isn't and then we get into a back-and-forth and That's all I'm saying right and I think that do

090you mind if I go I think that just builds on I think we need to be transparent and we need to build on and say I Understand you might think that's simple. Let me explain to you why it's not I'm gonna go back review this and then I will come back at the next meeting with something Mrs. Capaldi, did you want to go? My suggestion, rather than putting it under the public comment agenda item, couldn't the superintendent, in listening to that question tonight, have answered that in your superintendent's report? Because your superintendent's report does not have, it's not. You know, you can't deviate from that and add something to it. Rather than putting it under the citizens' code and may open a can of worms and visit them. But we might, someone suggested that they

091want citizens' form at the end. I think we should discuss that. We can't today because it's not on our agenda. But he had some good points on that. Maybe we would change that so you can't do it during superintendent's report. I think we should try to answer all the questions at the next meeting because they're asking us questions and I think if we can and if they're reasonable, we should answer them. But I really, that's my opinion. I think we should answer them, but not on the spur of the moment. The superintendent should take them down. We'll answer them next time. What can the chair? Yeah, and I agree, Mrs. O'Coin. The next meeting makes sense. But the other piece I was going to just bring up in the moment about discussion on this, should

092this first read be held? Or not held. Maybe we send it back. This feedback goes back to policy subcommittee to bring in Mrs. Kamanyani's suggestion to discuss. I'm just throwing that out there. Well, the only question is, what if we decide, right here we're split on that too, so if we change and put the words in to kind of your answer, then it would be debating at the other side. You know what I mean? It's going to be the other side will say, no, we didn't want that in there. Oh, I see. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I know what you mean. Go ahead. So I completely support what Mrs. Carmiani is saying. I have a hard time sitting here and not answering questions sometimes. And so I've highlighted here, not before this conversation

093even happened, but I've highlighted things that I feel like I'm going to follow up on because I think that they are questions that I know answers to. And I feel like we should be providing the answers so we can move forward. God bless you. So we should vote this first reading down. the majority of people because you have to put it in a policy right because you'll send it back to us the majority wants us to hold the most go look at it next time can can i ask that maybe we send it back to committee to look at other policies at other districts to see how they handle questions so that maybe we can be in alignment with other school committees i see no problem no you have somebody in the audience what you

094have somebody in the audience taking the time discussing to get answers to us. I just have an issue with Ms. Terry, for example, you said you were gonna follow up with some questions and you contact directly that person, but then everyone that is here didn't get the information you sent to a specific parent or caregiver. So I think, you know, like if you gather your thoughts or your answers, at the next meeting would be helpful to get answers or if there is like a flyer or something from the superintendent addressing the questions that are asked on every school meeting. So the whole community can get the information. Okay, thank you. So I think we should send this back and rewrite the policy to address what we're talking about right now. Through the chair. So I

095appreciate that feedback. I appreciate hearing your perspective. It wasn't the way that I was looking at it, but I can appreciate now that you've said it, how you may want to hear an answer. My notes. one of them was an answer that I could provide pretty easily another one is I don't know the answer to a question that was asked and I wanted to go and look for the answer myself so I guess I guess some of it is that I want follow-up from myself to do the follow-ups but I can see her point to you know everyone to hear the answer and I agree and to the member of the public that spoke I think that's why I made the suggestion maybe we should have a standing agenda item answer questions from the previous

096meeting because then we have time to research it like you were saying take the question then the next meeting those questions get answered on the agenda then it solves that situation that's just my opinion because she did have a good point because most of the time we would say if you want that question answer call personally the office, the superintendent, but then the others do not hear it. So that's a good idea. But I do agree with you. I'm uncomfortable with answering it in the moment. I think we need time to take it in like Mrs. Terry is going to research something, Mr. Lamache may do the same. And this way we can answer them the next time and there won't be so many that we have to answer at one time. Could it be

097appropriate to include responses in the communications agenda item? You know, maybe it's not just about reporting, hey, we got emails from parents, et cetera, but we're closing the loop on topics from a previous meeting. To me, it seems like it might fit. So we can take all this into consideration, the policy committee meeting. Go ahead. So to your point, Mr. Smulski, I think sometimes I answer questions during communications because I feel like they're easy to answer, like Mrs. Carminiani said. So I know I've done that in the past. I don't know if that falls in line with our communications line item, but I know I've done that before. It works. So I think we should approve the first read, right? And then you guys bring it back, no? Well, if you have all these changes,

098I don't see why we need to approve it. Don't bother. Oh, okay. I just didn't know. Because I want to send it out to the community, too. Because we only send it out to the community after the first read. I know, but there's such a lot to discuss now. Well, the question is, if we took Mr. Smolsky's advice and put it under the communications policy, this policy could go through and add it to the communication policy. If that's what you thought. Through the chair, though, Mrs. Carminiani asked if you would look back at what other districts do, and so I think it's valid to send it back. We'll either take a vote on it, or if a second is willing to take it back, and then we'll take the motion off the floor. We'll send

099it back to the committee. Through the chair, but isn't there value of sending it out to the community? Not if we don't think it's right. currently if we think needs work I wouldn't send out to we send it the next time okay I understand okay just have two questions before I move it do it there's a committee agreed that we should change the title to public comment agenda item is that should we keep that there is that no not necessarily well that's what means we should look at that too then I think you should look at that too because if you're if you're going to allow questions then it's more than just a comment Okay, who made the second? I was the second. Are you willing to take it back? I have Jamie, Jordan, I

100was the second. Was it Jordan? Yeah. You were first. Yeah, I'll move it back. Oh, yeah. Jordan was second? Okay, Jordan, are you willing to take your second back? I'll move it. Okay, and who made the motion? I made the motion, so I'll withdraw. Okay, are you withdrawing it? Yeah. Okay, so we'll send it back to the policy committee. Thank you. We've had quite good feedback, and we'll see if we can come up with something. Okay? Okay, Kathy, one more, right? Well, I think this will have to be held up. It's policy BBAA. The only change there was to change Citizens Forum to public comment. So thinking about that, we'll withdraw this one tonight. Okay. Because they're all on the first read anyway. Yeah, so we'll bring those both back to our committee, which is

101November something. Okay. So good. I have one more that's not on the list because it's not meant for reading, but it has to do with policy. We thought BH, which has to do with communications. This was as a request for Mrs. Smolsky and Mrs. Terry about how to handle it when we get communications. And some of us write back or answer them and some of us don't. How would you adopt that into a policy? So we did discuss that. We didn't come with any suggestions. We had several concerns. One of which was we thought we were afraid if we did that and notified everybody who did what, that might be misconstrued as we're doing deliberation and violate the open meeting law. So we were worried about that because even though you may not say something,

102it might look like you're kind of telling people what to say. So that was our biggest concern. Our second concern. was mr well mr lamarche looked at other superintendents could not find any policies that address that issue correct mr lamarche correct and the third one was and i'm just saying this because this is what we talked about if i answered a person why should it matter if i know who else answered it i guess my why would we want my question to you because you had raised that and you had also raised it why is it important that you know that who answered it that was the question we discussed we didn't have an answer for that Through the chair? I'll answer and then you can answer separate if you have a different opinion. So

103when I was asked that question, I felt like... I wouldn't want somebody to feel like they weren't getting an answer from somebody. It doesn't necessarily mean that I needed to know you answered it. It means I need to know that somebody provided an answer to a question that we as a committee received. And so if Mr. LaMarche takes that lead and he responds to somebody that we all get copied on, then I know that person has not been left stranded without a response. And he can copy all of us on that. And the challenge is if I responded to somebody, you may not know that that person ever was responded to is my take on it. I don't know if that's different than yours. My understanding is that I think the best practice is if

104the chair responds to every email with us on it and we don't respond because it's not a violation if we don't reply. And if the chair responds, even if it's just acknowledging, I'm not saying the chair is speaking on my behalf, just acknowledging we all received the email, thank you very much. And then if individuals want to give what their personal view on the issue is, they can. But at least... If we know that if the chair responds to every email that's received to the group, we know that we're safe, that the public got, is that we're acknowledging the receipt of the email. But as you said, I have to be careful that I'm not speaking for you. Correct. Because sometimes I have my own opinion and I answer and I don't copy everybody. I

105agree. Most of the time I answer, I don't copy. If I had to do that, I would always say, thank you, I acknowledge your email, something like that. But I don't like that idea as far as if I give it, I'm speaking for you and you probably- Just acknowledging it, right, not talking about the issue. Through the chair, can I speak before you do, if you don't mind? I have a challenge with that because then it sounds like the person has been responded to, but that's really only in- principle that they've been responded to it doesn't give any response to the actual question that came in to us so that's why I have a challenge with that being satisfactory sounds like the wrong word but that being enough because it doesn't actually provide a response

106hear you so I guess Mike I'm confused I'm with mrs. Cabala a little bit if you respond then you know they got an answer if mrs. Cabala responds she knows that she responded if I respond I know I responded but if somebody sorry if we could do mind if we go back and forth but if somebody responds when is your next school committee meeting maybe that's a bad example because maybe you would copy all of us on that answer because it's just black and white on the district website but I mean It could be seven of us writing back. This is our next school committee meeting when it didn't need to be Because we didn't know each one of us responded to that. I understand and I yeah, I think the chair On that issue

107the chair would respond. I don't know I just look at it that the chair leads the way with the emails not not telling their personal opinion But the chair kind of is the face of the committee Not getting into your personal opinions, and then she'll forward it to the superintendent. I started answering emails and copying everyone, and it was my opinion, and I didn't like that idea. I'd rather write my own, and everybody, I think you have the option. Write it. It doesn't matter if I respond. If you want to respond, go ahead. Go ahead. I think Mrs. Terry summarized what my intention was. You did it very well. Thanks. And, you know, no offense, but I get a ton of email at work. And if I get an email that just says, hey, I

108heard you, I got your email, it makes me crazy because it didn't do anything for me. It's just junk mail. It's like spam. I know you guys heard it. I know you received it. It landed in your inbox. I got the right email address. So that's just administrative check the box. We can alleviate that, right? It's just unnecessary email to seven of you plus, you know, Ms. Lamar. And Ms. LaFerriere, it's less about like, if you respond to me, yes, of course, you know that you typed the email, but Mrs. O'Coin might not know that you responded to me. And Mrs. Terry might not know that you responded to me. That's why I'm saying... I totally hear you. I totally hear you. But I guess my thing is if I respond to you, Mrs. LaCroix

109doesn't need to know because my opinion might be different than her opinion. Right, right. But if I send an email and nobody responds to me... That's just as bad as getting the hey I got your email agreed and so I think alleviating the no response the chair would make sure that that response is every time so that issue would never happen that's just like an out of mind it's out of me i understand how about this how about this if you get an email this uh chair would respond to the person and say i am following this email to the superintendent who will answer because ultimately he is the one that should be answering these questions we don't we don't we know some of it but he's our spokesperson when they're asking certain things that

110we don't know it should be most of the time it's forward to it's given to seven us plus mr lamar sometimes mr mathemaster you know it depends on what it is but if the chair says i am forwarding this to the superintendent then we can do whatever we can answer if we want or he can and a lot of times i get an email and i'm sure you people we can't we don't know the answer so i do write the email back to this person i say even though we get it i say i am directing superintendent lamar to respond to this email and i thought and i'm forwarding it even though he got it i'm going to direct him to make sure you get the response because i don't know the answer a lot

111of times we don't know the answer so that's that's what i do but if i know if you're writing to me and i know and i i will respond to you it's as long as that doesn't discourage other people you know committee members from communicating like mrs terry sent me a very well-written well-crafted email like 2 30 in the morning this is la ferrera as well mrs costello you sent me emails um this is carmen yanni i mean i've got it from a lot of people so surely you could direct into miss lamarche but i would also value hearing from other members of the committee because you've all added context that's i and i we do go ahead through the chair I get it, I do, but it's also, you know, if I respond out

112to you, but I also add other people on the committee, it can look like open deliberation. Right. And that's a slippery slope, you know. And granted, even though I know I respond to you, you know, if I, it's just that if I put it out there. for everyone or then if I don't you know I can go down open deliberation violation for open meeting law or I could end up doing eight to ten extra steps to go oh hey by the way I replied to David Smolsky I replied to so-and-so I replied to you know and it's excessive amount of emails of information between all of us where I think the message then gets lost. If I could jump in there before, Ms. Evans, I apologize. I think the big thing, the crux of this

113is if we were not elected officials, we could reply all all day long. But that's the problem. Like at work, I hit reply all. Then everybody knows. But we can't do that because then it's open meeting law violation because it's considered deliberate. I respond, then Ms. Casella, Ms. Scabala, where all the e-mails are flying around, and that's deliberation, and that's against the law. So that's the bottom line is why we can't click reply all. I just wanted to get that in there. I'm sorry. I don't think anybody was saying reply all, though. Effectively, you two have kind of said where I wanted to go, and that's I don't think there is going to be an easy solution that will make anyone happy because we are bound by the foundations of our government, which have been

114in place since the birth of our government. Open meeting law, as great as it is, isn't perfect. So if we do want to go down a path where we look for a new way to do communication, I think it's imperative that we have legal counsel so we don't put ourselves into... um a situation with open meeting law because we can craft a policy but if we don't know if that's a slippery slope we're just going to set ourselves up for trouble you might want to bring the microphone over just in case i'm sorry that i realized that now yeah what is what was your suggestion now are you working on this or the problem we just brought it we didn't we didn't come to any conclusion those are the our major concern was it might

115look like we're deliberating with the seven members so that's and and also mr lamarche had no he looked and could not find any other superintendent who has anything in a policy that would remotely resemble that comment so you so we held it up all the discussion we just threw it out here tonight for discussion who previously would list emails that were received, who they were received from, and just a general line or two about the topic. In the recent meeting minutes, in the last couple of months, probably since right around when we had our public forum at the high school. those are omitted from the minutes. So I think that that would also help the situation if you continued to list when the email was received. I know that you might be getting several of

116them, but with that being left out of the minutes, that's also sort of a... And I'm just going to, it's not that I necessarily agree with this, but according to law. We don't have to answer anyone's email. That's according to law. I got the ruling. Like I said, that's not my feeling. I like to. Once in a while, if I get a disrespectful email, then I will not respond. So that's my prerogative. But we're trying to respond to everyone. and I just wanted to make that clear. Go ahead. Madam Chair and School Committee, the other suggestion, too, because we've kind of morphed, this is my 12th year as a superintendent, we've kind of morphed into always including the entire committee on a correspondence. Prior to that, people, public would direct an email to one school

117committee member and to try to, and if you're not getting a response for that, obviously that's a concern, but that's how it used to work in the past. You go to one school committee member and they work either with me or with other people. and try to get the response and the answers to that and then answer to the people but since we've moved uh i'm gonna go with the same time frame as mrs berry since we moved to always including every all seven members and every correspondence that's where we run into the concerns about open meeting law violations but if you direct an email directly to a school committee member uh obviously one that you think you're working well with or whatever to get answers that's what i would recommend you do too and

118then this this shouldn't be the same it shouldn't be elevate itself to the same open meeting law issue that's out there but this was good um discussion i really uh appreciate that so it's good for the policy committee now to take all this into consideration go ahead you can say sure that when you're responding that if you have an opinion because our difference is i mean opinion is fact right when the parent asked last session are teachers allowed to have their children come into the school system who don't live in the two towns there's actually a policy from what i understand describing that which is fact you can direct that person to that policy or at that moment you can actually tell what the policy is i don't see why you can't answer that question

119immediately when there's an actual factual policy this probably doesn't really matter too much except that i wanted to clarify i think miss barry may be mistaken i think that those notations about who has been emailing in the minutes probably stopped back when we were facing COVID because we were receiving a significant amount of communication from parent groups or parents, you know, just like I am in the district. And so I think that's probably when it stopped, when it was no longer productive to list off 70 different people that messaged us in between meetings or something. Okay. So maybe I'm mistaken too, but I really think. Okay. It probably is neither here nor there, but it's how I was thinking about it. Mr. Yates, when I write back, I will always say I'm speaking for myself

120and not the committee because I do not have the authority to speak for the whole committee. So I do put that. If somebody asked me a direct question, you asked me about the policy a couple of weeks ago, Mr. Smolsky, and I wrote back, but that was just me because that's my subcommittee. But as a rule, if I get an email and I respond, I always say I'm speaking for myself and not the committee because that's how we should answer them. So, okay. No, I think we've had the discussion long enough, Kathy. You can take all the seats of consideration back to your committee. Yes. And that concludes the policy. Just one more. We did talk about the curriculum one, but Mrs. Comey, I mentioned that we brought it. i think you got a copy

121of it this week and so we're working on that i'm not sure if they'll be ready for the next um it will be ready for our next policy i have curriculum uh subs uh for teaching and learning feedback on that okay good so they'll be on our agenda too okay thank you so i'll go to the next item on the agenda and it's updates special education parents advisory council cpac and member gene costello update us All right, so the CPAC was able to meet with Director Bergeron for Pupil Personnel Services, and we're going to have a meet and greet for the new director for November 17th at 7 p.m. Location to be determined still, right? Yes. Okay. And let's see, we're also working on getting an email out of information about what a special education

122parent advisory council is to help generate new members and to get more information out there. We're also going to be sending out satisfaction surveys soon. for people that have IEPs, 504s, out of district, things like that. And the upcoming topics and trainings that the CPAC would like to work on getting through our MassPAC membership, which is the MassPAC is kind of like what MASC is for school committees, MassPAC is to CPACs, which would be basic rights, one on bullying. transitions for those that are turning three coming into the system for special education coming out of like early intervention and then 18 to 22 for the transitions out of the school because with covid a lot of the traditional venues or pathways after school are closed or only taking very few participants so a lot of

123people that are aged 18 to 22 that are leaving the school have a those that are in special education have very different opportunities that they would not normally be used to and then we're also updating the website so a lot of changes are going to be happening in the next month or so and a lot of information being put out. Any questions? Thank you for the report. Oh yeah sorry and normally CPAC meetings are the first Wednesday of the month at seven o'clock and it's on zoom still. Okay. Next item is request for 2.0 FTE paraprofessional positions. Director Bergeron. Madam Chair and committee, so tonight I'm asking for permission to add two full-time positions for paraprofessionals for students with disabilities in the district. We have both an older student and a younger student with behavioral

124concerns that are greater than we anticipated. The older one is becoming a bit of a safety issue and we need additional staff to keep our staff safe and our children safe. And the younger one is causing an issue where now we have kids that are uncovered because additional staff are pulled to assist the student when they are dysregulated, which leaves other children uncovered. By law, we need to provide the services on the students' IEPs. So that it's not acceptable to have a student uncovered when it is written into an IEP. So these were unanticipated and I know that and I've worked with Mr. Matthew to come up with a plan, but I'm asking for your permission to add these two positions. Okay, I'll entertain a motion to approve Director Bergeron's request this evening. So moved.

125Second. Discussion. the funding would be from circuit breaker i think initially yes if there's room in the uh asset two grant that we're utilizing this year then certainly we'll put it in there but the initial recommendation would be circuit breaker okay any other questions seeing none all in favor motion carries it's unanimous thank you um and last on the agenda is superintendent schools mr lamarge Madam chair and school committee I did present the four goals they were in your file Is it the desire of the school committee for me to read through each one of them? Okay. No This this this is my third year, but it'll be my first time doing this Just to be clear. So standard one is curriculum planning and assessment. Goal number one, the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District will continue

126to systematically move towards the adoption of high quality instructional materials that are aligned with the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks supported by an academic research base like the nationally established edreports.org or the Massachusetts established Curate. Forms of evidence in support of this goals. Number one, establish a grade six through eight representative mathematics instructional materials team to present findings and recommendations to the curriculum subcommittee of the school committee and then to the full committee for adoption. The six through eight mathematics instructional materials team will work concurrently with similarly positioned Massachusetts school districts to share knowledge and experiences in the adoption process. Work with the Policy Subcommittee and Curriculum Subcommittee of the School Committee to adopt a new Curriculum Evaluation, Development, and Adoption Policy, IGA. Fully participate in Year 2 Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Early Literacy Grant

127to build collective knowledge and consensus for future curriculum adjustments and decisions. Establishment of a District Representative Professional Development Committee. District administration will collectively visit all DCRSD schools monthly in instructional classrooms within the DCRSD for the 2021-2022 school year. So that's goal number one. School separately, if we have questions or comments, so that you're not like, so that we can just kind of handle them. Sure. Is that okay? Yeah. I have a couple questions. Sure. I'm just wondering, like, I want to make sure that when we have your goals that we adequately... able to evaluate them and so when you say forms of evidence in support of this goal I would know if you look on the teachers goals and rubrics they have planned activities so like I want to make sure we have planned activities

128or there's another way of doing it action steps and measurable measure and evidence So, you know, I went through and looked at different superintendent goals, and I've seen some that have action steps for their goal, and then how they're measuring an evidence that would be provided. Because I think some of the goals are very, like, we're going to continue to do this. And that's great. I think it's true. But, like, we need to have, like, direct action steps on what's going to happen this year. But first he set this up. Now, as time goes on, he should write the evidence for us. That's how I would do it. So we would know that he has either progressing with these goals or he has completed his goals. Don't you think that? Okay, but can I just

129say, like, the DCRSD will continue to systematically move towards the adoption of high-quality instructional materials. Okay, what is your plan? What's your planned activities to do that? And if these forms of evidence are your planned activities, then let's name them, these are my planned activities, so that we can have an accountability kind of level. I just wouldn't want you to get to May and then have me say this in May. Through the chair, I would have respectfully asked for this before I did this. Well, I only got this yesterday. Because it just feels like, again, I'm just going down where I'm being clarified when I'm asked to produce something. I've looked at supertense evaluations across the board. They're all over the place. There is no one set standard or system for this. As a matter

130of fact, the majority of the state are just like teachers. They only have two goals. They only have a professional practice goal and another goal. But again, to me, when I set up the forms of evidence, it wasn't that they were going to be – they're general for a reason because there's so many other pieces that could be fit into this or fall out of this or other forms of evidence that could go into this. But whatever you want to give me for a roadmap, I'll follow it. I'd like to see what here what the committee thinks I just think that if we have goals that are very open open in general we need to have at least concrete items that are that we have outcomes to matter this is the school committee with the

131superintendent okay not from the audience that's all respectfully could you give me an example please sure I just Are you going to, like, forms of evidence in support of this goal? I just want to know, are you going to this year establish grades 6 to 8 representative mathematics and structural curriculum materials? Like, is that what you're planning to do, or are we saying these are examples of? So when we go to measure, did you meet your goal, I can adequately say, you know what, this is exactly what he said he was going to do. Yes, he did it, and he even did more. well i'll just throw mine i think it pretty much says this is what he's going to do in fact haven't you already started this first one yeah mr agreed i'm just

132asking can we put it as planned activities our our teachers are asked to give their planned activities i think we should have the same expectation okay and i my i'm not the end-all be-all i i'd love to hear what the committee has to think again just to be clear this is my first time doing it here so agree works on this, then he can put down his, what he's planned, his evidence. Did I accomplish this through whatever? Please keep in mind there is a mid-year review, which I have to supply evidence of how I'm meeting my goals. That's what tells us that he's done it. I'm going back to when we ask our teachers to submit their their student learning goal and professional practice goal for the year and we ask them to do this

133by November, we're asking them to provide us with what are your planned activities and it's a smart goal that it's back to measurable items and I just want to make sure that we have measurable data to go with. I think it's a bit of a quibble on what we're calling it because if I look at one, you know, you know, establish grades six through eight representative mathematics and structural materials team to present findings and recommendations to the curriculum subcommittee of the school committee and then to the full committee for adoption. That's measurable. It's from 20 to 21, 20, 22 school year. It has definite steps of bringing it through and having it complete. to come to the table here for our review for adoption of. That is measurable. It is specific. It follows a smart

134goal. Okay, I just want to make sure that we're all under the understanding that we're expecting that these are the things that are going to be happening. at least yes is that what we're is that what you're expecting mr rash that's that's actually what i'm presenting tonight okay well i just i okay i want to make sure that we're i don't want to have any through the chair of clarity Mrs. Cominanti I hear you so this I this document is going to be our roadmap for the year and this we're going to save this we're going to look at this and we're going to look at it at the mid-year review we're going to look at it at the formal review and we're going to use that's my this is just my one opinion my

135interpretation of this this presentation of now in January we can pull this out and we can say okay Mr. Lamont did you do this and tell us about this and that's my opinion. I will just have questions when we get to the next goal of how will we measure certain items. That's all. Oh okay. I get that. So I guess I I'm hearing what Mrs. Carmagnani says, and I feel like one of the things that we said we were going to support Mr. LaMarche with this year was helping him create these goals and making them attainable and achievable and for us to be able to measure them with him. So I'm not in disagreement with what you're proposing. As a matter of fact, I think you're trying to make it easier for him in the

136long run by saying we have the ability to make these check marks next to what you do. My two comments are... I agree with you that this doesn't seem to follow the SMART goals idea that I've learned in the way that I've ever had to do them for my job because there's a timeline measurability. And I can appreciate that Mrs. Costello believes that it's for the year, but every time I've had to write a SMART goal, it's supposed to be for short-term periods of when these things are going to be achieved. And I already wrote. on my paper here already in progress for number one as well because i think this is something that is already happening and so maybe that has to be a one month timeline or whatever you're already working on it

137and my only other comment and i guess that's kind of all over the road but i didn't really put my thoughts together on this until we were here hearing this feedback um i put my thoughts together not based on this feedback i'm sorry if i said that poorly My only other thought was this seems to be specific to the team. And I was looking at this as your goals, Ms. LaMarche, and specifically you. And so when you write district administration will collectively visit all DCRSD schools monthly, I know you have done that, and I know you have shown this September and October that you've been present in our schools. I know that's you that have done that. So I'm wondering why it doesn't say that you're going to do that unless you're trying to say

138that. Each of you, everybody on the district administration team is going to be there monthly. I don't know that answer, and I guess I'd like to. Can I answer that? Sure. As the district leader, that is something that he needs to promote, that he, as a district leader, is having his team do this. So I am totally in support of. That some of the goals will seem like team goals, but he is ultimately the director of that team Okay, so and I'm sorry like I think gold number like well number one is probably not the best of examples to say that it's not Exactly because these are written that we are able to check them off It is the next one. So like let's go to the next one Sorry. I just wanted to repeat

139one comment. I look at it, too, as the evaluation is tied into the performance of the district. And the performance of the district, the buck stops with the superintendent. So I think sometimes it's hard to... get it right to Mr. Steve Lamarche because we're looking at the district vision, the whole, what was accomplished, whatever's here. So I think we have to remember that the measuring and the evaluation is not only the person, but it's also the district and how the district is functioning and how we're moving along. That's the way I look at it. And if you're talking to me because you seem to be looking at me. Oh, no, no. I didn't mean to just look at you. I was everybody. How do you brought that up? Well, my point on number six was

140I know Mr. LaMarche has accomplished these things in the past two months. And so if I said I was going to support him and help with these goals to make sure that happened, I can say personally that I know that that has happened. And that gives me the ability to check that box. I don't necessarily know that of every other person on the administration team is what my point to that was. But I think that in that particular instance, then... you know we he manages the team and then we would he would report out and say yup the team's done this this this and if they haven't he's going to hold them accountable fair but i was just trying to make a point that i thought he was doing that so i was trying to

141acknowledge that understood understood i was just also going along with what mrs caminani had said it's the leader of the district what he was saying i was kind of agreeing with you yeah sorry to interrupt Madam Chair and School Committee, keep in mind when I wrote forms of evidence, those aren't goals. Those aren't intended to be the measurable things. They're intended to be the evidence that's going to support the actual goal. So when we get into number two, teaching all students, the Dudley-Chelton Regional School District will develop more opportunities and structures to meet the needs of all learners to increase student achievement and access. Forms of evidence in support of this is expand educator capacity to analyze data. So this means that we... The evidence I'm going to bring in, because this is just the

142first stage, which should actually happen, you know, with a lot of things, we've been a little bit late on a couple of things, meaning this should actually be the first meeting in September I should be sharing this with you, because we're already backfilling that I know you're doing some of these things. And also with teacher goals, they're two-year goals. This is a minor one-year goal, just to throw that in as well. So expand educated capacity to analyze data, that means that we have to look at professional development, we have to analyze how we're actually looking at data, you know, what are the things we implemented as a team to try to get better at analyzing data, what are the data elements that we're looking at. That's an entire whole capacity that I need to bring

143evidence in to say that this is how we're accomplishing this expansion of data analysis within our district. So, again, the forms of evidence aren't meant as SMART goals. Number two, expand educated capacity to eliminate instructional gaps, which is very important. Expand educator capacity to identify intervention strategies and opportunities. Identify ways to leverage scheduling to maximize personalized intervention, acceleration, and enrichment for all students. This is something we've been working on for a while. I will bring in the evidence to support what we've been working on and how this is actually working when it comes time for me to actually give you the hard evidence on this. Strengthen and streamline special education protocols to ensure every pre-K 12 plus student has access to a high quality curriculum and social and emotional support. Again, my responsibility is to

144bring in evidence that we are doing that. It isn't intended for this particular forms of evidence. Forms of evidence were intended to be a generalization with the exception obviously of goal one because those are very specific, I get that. But the rest of them is, and I'm going to be 100% honest with you, I listed five forms of evidence. There could be ten and I could actually maybe only do two of these. I don't know. It just depends on how the year flows and moves. The important part was the goal and how do I identify forms of evidence behind it. That's what I was intending to do. But again, I'll take whatever roadmap this committee wants me to go down, how you want me to format it, what boxes you want me to put on

145it. I will do all of that. I think it's fine. That's my opinion. I think it's fine. Anyone else? I think it's fine right now. Yeah, I think it's fine. The goals and he's got what he's going to show us as evidence. That's what I want to know because I'm not in the schools, so he has to bring it to me. I don't know if he's accomplished this enough until you come in with the actual things that he's done. Remember, I may not accomplish all of it. I may not. Any questions on goal number two? I have a question. So if we're going to go back to the goals, and I hear what you're saying on the forms of evidence, I think that I can support you best by having those more laid out in

146a more direct fashion, but I guess these are your goals. I mean, sorry, your ways. I mean, I just... you're saying you wish you knew this ahead of time. And I believe I agree with Kathy. Rather than tell you at the mid-year, hey, why didn't you do these things? If we say, hey, list out everything you're planning on doing or how you're going to accomplish it or whatever, then it makes it easier for you to achieve it. But back to the goal itself, the DCRSD will develop more opportunities and structures. I've always been guided in my professional world that more opportunities does not provide a direct measurable outcome. And so that could be you develop one more opportunity for students to meet opportunity or structure to meet the needs of all learners. Or it could

147mean you develop 300. And so I just don't feel like that gives me any real sense of what you're going to accomplish with that. Thank you. How about if I remove more opportunities and just have the DCRF State School develop structures to meet the needs of all learners to increase student achievement and access? I would say what's wrong with more opportunities? I guess I would just argue that a measurable goal would be two by January 1st or something. Again, that's how I've always had to do my goals, but I'm one member of this board, too. But again, respectfully, this is a year-long goal. I understand. I understand, but I don't know. I just feel like that could have more meat to it. I thought that's what we were coming here to do is to talk

148these things through and try to work on supports and I don't know. I don't take this as a negative experience. I think this is a, the reason we're on this board is to help you work together to best put forth what we can for this district. And so I don't think you should be defensive here because, and I'm not saying you are, I'm just saying, I don't think you should take that that way. You should take this feedback and say, all right, you want to make it better? Let's make it better. Like let's work on these things. Sure. I'd be happy to take all two back and reword it. If that's what the committee would like me to do. I'm only one member. Firstly, for goal number two, I would like to see that quantified

149more, you know, where a minimum of five, you know, opportunities or four, you know, just something that you can actually touch, you know. Because I would have problems with that if that was a goal for one of my kids. I just want a little bit more meat to it. I feel the same way. This is Costello. Goal number one was pretty black and white. We're going to get a policy IGA. We're going to make the math team. I mean, those are concrete things. When I was teaching back in the day, they used to call them behavioral objectives, where you actually, like, a kid will get 10 out of 20 problems right in a test. You had to have something that you could measure right off the bat. And I think on goal one, those are

150pretty black and white. I think goal two, they're too vague. Expand education capacity. How? By having a new I think it should have more meat to it than I thought to go one was fine go to To expand what does expand me? What are you gonna do? How you gonna expand that buy something? I think you should have a concrete thing that you how you got to reach that goal right in the goal Okay, I'll definitely work roll number two Can I just ask like you had said something about like these are the types of things I may do Like I don't want to if you're listing them. Are we holding you accountable to all of them? That's my question. I was hoping not because, again, I'm trying to give you generalizations on how to

151support the goal because, again, some of these could happen, some of these may not happen. There may be other things that happen that I didn't list here, and I don't necessarily want to be called above and beyond because it's supporting the goal. It's not. It's just, you know, at the end of the year, it's whether I've met, partially met, met, or not met. See, from my perspective, I'd like to see what you are definitely going to do, and then if you do above that, great. And if you come back and you say, you know what, mid-year you say, you know, number one is not going to work for these reasons, so we are changing as a district. We've met as a district administration team, and we are going in this direction instead. Great. And we'll

152be able to kind of quantify that. Okay. Okay, so we will. I'm going to rework. Goal three, family and community engagement. The DCRSD will engage families and community in meaningful and beneficial ways to cultivate an inclusive, caring, and supportive district environment. Forms of evidence in support of this goal will be DCRSD's strategic plan will be reviewed for progress and prepared for an update in the 2022-2023 school year. School improvement plans will be developed with a common thread of construct across all schools for the 2022-2023 school year. 2023 school year increased attendance by central office administrators at school-based and school-sponsored events work with the capital a and safety committee in each town in support of capital and safety improvements work with the school building authority to coordinate repairs and or the renovation of the shepherd hill

153regional high school so i love this school because i want this to happen i also wonder how we can make that more measurable, but I want these things to happen. And I would love to see a form of evidence being ways that they that our district administration is going to interact with the families directly. I think that the strategic plan is great. I think we do need to look at that. I think the school improvement plans will include the school council at each school, so that will include parent support in that manner. But that's only of, I think it's three representatives on each committee, and maybe I'm wrong, but I think that's what it is. I feel like I want this to also provide some way of interaction with all the families or with more

154of the families. And I will give you credit that I think your responses to emails since we went through your review have been far more direct and... I don't have my words together here, but they've shown personal care to the family that you're responding to. And so I think you have definitely done a good job of responding to the person on the other end of an email that I've seen. But I want to see another measurable form of evidence that would, and I don't have one for you as an example, but I would really appreciate kind of some way that you think you can connect with families. Jean might have a suggestion. I do. I know that the school councils usually go with the principals, but is there any way that as the administrative team

155you can reach out more and have that feedback with the school councils from time to time and have that as be part of the evidence of reaching out to the community more? Yeah. Can I add one more thing because that just triggered it to me? I also think students should be included in this and I know you do that at the high school level but the middle school level has principal counsel and there's other ways that you could interact with the students at a lower at a lower grade level that would be fantastic for them to get to know you too or as a district team and when I say that I don't necessarily just mean i think at some of the elementary schools they would have like lunch with the principal so you could

156have lunch with the superintendent you know you don't have to just show up once in a while to make them feel important standard three is families and community engagement so i think it's more parents and community out overweight but did you have a question I'm also really partial to goal number three, and I like the first three points of evidence that you list. And this might be a misunderstanding on my part, but I personally would like to see the list expanded only because I look at parts four and five, and I see something more infrastructural than something that I would actually call family and community engagement, which is not to say that those are not highly important because they are. I just think those last two tend to stick out. to me as kind of

157being the odd ones out and i'd want to see increased um investment in evidence that looks more like the first three thank you so i think number two seems like something that you're doing at the next school year and if we're truly doing it you're not you're starting the process okay you developed your commentary okay so you're developing I guess, what are you doing with the school improvement plans? Are you trying to get them so that they're all uniform this year? basic functions of construct of the school improvement plans because there are seven different school improvement plans. My understanding here in this district, and maybe somebody can correct me, but my administrative team told me that they actually happen in the spring. They don't happen in the fall. So we're going to work together throughout

158the year to try to construct them with school councils and with some similarity to them, but they can't be exactly alike. And that's preparation for the next school year. Okay. And then for the DCRSD strategic plan will be reviewed for progress and paired for an update. So when we're talking about that, are we talking like in relation to this goal? Are you talking about how we're going to start like a strategic plan committee where you may have like what type of parent community involvement will you have? Like is that what you're talking about that that's what you're going to plan out this year? Yes, I have no idea what that looks like at this point in time because it will be the first time I go through it for this district. But yes, that's part

159of family and community engagement, the strategic plan. In the past, the last time we did a strategic plan, we had a meeting, I think it was at Nichols, right? Nichols College? But we were in a big auditorium and we had loads of parents and business people and politicians, senators. And so that's how we developed it on a Saturday. And we had round tables and everybody was discussing. So we invited a lot and something like that, maybe. through the chair and respectfully although you said students weren't included in that I think they're where why we're here and I feel like that yes still not students and when we developed it we shouldn't be included no no I'm right I was just circling back to you they're not listed but I think they're essential completely I guess

160I was looking for more how are you going to Engage the community in other ways like will you be doing you know? We get emails Great. Are we are we making sure our emails are we making sure things are are? Being able to be accessible for all different types of families like are we able to translate them? different ways like that are we are we making sure we updating our our website so that families and And our community can look at our website and find the information that we want, that they want. Because I think we've heard many times that they're not able to find the information. I can't find information on that. You know, like those are the kind of things like, are you as a superintendent going to be holding like virtual office

161hours that community members could stop in and do? You know, I think it's good for community engagement to say that you're attending. local events, which you are. You might as well put that there, that you're working with local government officials, which you are. But I think if you list those type of things, that's showing your family and community engagement. Thank you. Again, tonight wasn't to cross the T on everything that I was going to do. It was to present a goal that I have to fulfill, and I was trying to provide forms of evidence that would support that. Right. I just... You know, to your last point, Kathy, that is form of evidence number three. You know, the increased attendance by central office administrators. He is a central office administrator at school-based functions. So, I

162mean, it's there. Yeah. I just, okay. And then, sorry, to the website, I mean. I think that is another topic that we probably have to look at budget to actually carve to end up having somebody to come in to do an overhaul of the website. I agree with Kathy. I mean, it should be simplified. It is like a lot of the parents, they can't find things. Trust me, I totally understand, and I think it does need to be overhauled, but I think it's definitely a topic for another time. Right. And I agree with Jean that I think the budget most likely can't support it at this point, but we need, because right now the person's doing it, it's on the side, like a teacher, one of the teachers are doing it. So it's not, you

163need, I think you need a full-time person or much more hours to come in and really focus just on the website. But again, that's a budgetary issue. So I think the website is separate because of the budgetary constraints. That's what I meant. It's not necessarily in your purview. It is in your purview because you have the purview of everything. But we're engaging families and community in meaningful and beneficial ways to cultivate inclusive caring and supporting district environment. To me, that's a lot of SEL work. Like that is how, what kinds of things are we doing at the schools even to bring families in, to educate families on. What do I do if my students having trauma? What kind of resources do I have in the community? Like those are the kind of things that I

164would like to see in this that you know maybe that as a goal for our administration that we can have as a goal. Because that's really SEL we say it's our focus in our budget then it should be our focus for our school committee. Okay, next goal. Next goal, standard four, professional culture. The Dudley-Chelton Regional School District will use district-wide information to determine if the current policies, practices, and outcomes are the most essential priorities for students. Forms of evidence in support of this goal. Establish a shared vision through effective onboarding of new school principals and central office administration, meaning staff. Establish a shared vision through effective onboarding of new educators and support staff. the successful implementation of a new general ledger software system effectively engage and support the school committee and establish subcommittees to meet

165expectations of the full committee work with the school committee and the DCTA to successfully negotiate a successive agreement So I think that often we talk about bridging the two towns together, and I think that that fits into this as a way you build professional culture is to build across the grade level but across district the abilities to interact, the abilities to plan, the abilities to come together and make sure that we're... our vision and the way that it's carried out across both sides in a specific grade level or in all specific grade levels um stays intact thank you that's it thank you any other questions before we go on so do you want me to bring these back for the next meeting for a vote or are you voting on any of them or anything

166If you're asking me, I would love to see the ways that you've incorporated our feedback and so that we can make sure we're all on the same page about it. I don't know how anybody else feels. Sounds good. Okay. Great. Thank you. All right. We'll go to our next meeting date. School committee meeting will be Wednesday, November 10th. It'll be 7 p.m. and it will be here at the Charlton Middle School. The reason why we're doing the Charlton Middle School because we have only one meeting in November and one in December and we want to be at Shepherd Hill at Christmas time because the show choir will come in and sing for the school committee and our guests. And that is confirmed. And that's confirmed. Take note, it's not going to be in Dudley, it's

167going to be in Charlton. Our next meeting, November 10th. Did you just tell us what the date is, December? We don't have that. December 8th. It's going to be December what? December 8th. It's the second Wednesday. It's the second Wednesday. Yep, December 8th. So that would be our next meeting, and it's going to be in Dudley at Shepparton. But right now we're doing November 10th, Child to Middle School, 7 p.m. Budget and Finance Subcommittee, Wednesday, November 17th. That's 3.30, and that's video conferencing. What we have it listed on our schedule that it's three o'clock, but here it's three thirty Okay, so we'll change that to three o'clock Okay budget and finance subcommittee Wednesday November 17th at 3 p.m. And that's video conferencing Policy Review Subcommittee, Thursday, November 18th, 9 a.m., video conferencing. Curriculum Subcommittee for

168Teaching and Learning, that's to be determined. Capital Outlay Safety Subcommittee, Friday, November 19th, at 11 a.m., and that's video conferencing. Future agenda items. DCRSD, Strategic Plan Progress Report, that's for November. Fiscal Year 2023 School Committee Budget Priorities, that's November. DCLC Update, December. Superintendent slash Shepherd Hill Principal Awards, December. Student achievement report January 2022 2023 SY calendar that's February and how about the members anything to add I would just add Ms. Costello and I should be giving a report for the MASC conference okay anyone else yep we were gonna the revised superintendent goals okay Mrs. O'Connor, we have executive subcommittee. We haven't gone over the minutes for a while. I think we should look at the executive minutes. Okay. The executive minutes. We should probably talk about that at our next meeting, set up some data.

169Okay. We'll put that on. Anything else? Madam Chair, we need to add the need for a grant-funded special education coordinator's position within our district. And if we do think of it or if members do, you can email me on that. And so at this time, we're going to enter into executive session only to reconvene into regular session and take notes. I take votes, I'm sorry, if necessary, and then adjourn. And we're going into executive session to discuss strategy with the respect to collective bargaining, Dudley Child's Interprofessionals Association, and non-union personnel, superintendent, if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the public body and the chair, so to class. Now I'll take a roll call to enter into executive session. I need a vote. I make a motion to enter

170an executive session. I second. Okay. And Jordan? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. We're now in executive session.